A definition of Disapointment. (Philips 355)

Member Name: Shaaza

Product:	Philips 355
Date:	30/11/07 (250 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You can make your own ringtones, has WAP

Disadvantages: Does not have any modern features (bluetooth, USB connection, 3G etc), the camera is verry blurry!

Before I start criticizing this mobile phone I have to admit that IT WAS MY FIRST CAMERA phone and yes it was God's gift then.
I begged my aunt to buy me this mobile about two years ago. She finally gave me the £50.00 to go and buy the mobile.
I rushed to my nearby Virgin store to buy the mobile. Why Virgin Store? Well I already had a virgin simcard so that meant £10 discount.
When I got to the store it was my lucky day indeed, The Virgin company were having a week promotion of £20 off all mobiles so the mobile cost me only £40 including £10 top-up.

I rushed back home, I just couldn't't wait to get that mobile out and running. I got home and opened the small red box and yes it was a surreal moment. The mobile was glowing, all the accessories were packed very tight including the free white, one eared hands-free it came with.


-----------MY EXPERIENCE
After following the instructions of charging the mobile till it was full before first use I finally turned on the mobile.
I started browsing the mobile phone using the joystick to navigate. The joystick was very small, smooth and easy to control. However the keys were well stiff comparing to all the other mobiles I have owned. When I always try to send a text to someone by the time I finish texting my thumb would be hurting me, so I did try to avoid texting people as often as I could.
I did love how small the mobile was though almost everyone used to laugh at me saying how my mobile was a circle and very small.
The mobile came with a neck strap, however this did not even last long, after a month it was all broke and it caught dirty pretty quickly as it was white.
Of course I did say the joystick was lovely, but after about two months the joystick became all stiff at times that you could not even move it as some point and it looked like it was going to fall off, the silver color from the joystick was all coming off.
This mobile did not stop disappointing me at all. The layout of your SMS inbox is very annoying, and with the uncontrollable joystick it does not go on at all. Basically the SMS does not tell you who the message is from unless you click to read it which is very pathetiic.
If you want to save some of your received SMS it will be saved in the same folder as the SENT messages which I found very annoying, so I had to turn off the option that lets me save my sent messages. The experience with SMS is disastrous, you don't have many options and when you want to add a smiley you can only add it when you are done writing the SMS which is very pathetic.
I was regretting why I bought this mobile, it was mainly because of how cute and innocent it looked on the outside. Was very disappointed on how horrendous the experience was, and to imagine that I couldn't ask my mum or aunt to buy me a new mobile as I had just got this one, I knew I had to wait at least a year before I start asking for another mobile.


-------------CAMERA
At some point I just had to try out the so called 'digital camera'. It was not that hard to turn on the camera, I just had to go to multimedia and selected camera.
I could not believe what I was seeing, the camera was very blurry. A second there I did think my eyesight was getting bad because I had never seen a camera that blurry. Oh yes, I did wipe my eyes but the picture on the screen did not change. I was utterly disappointed. The disappointment did not stop there; I tried fiddling with the camera to work out how I could use the video. But oh no, it did not have the video feature. I guess I thought wrong that every mobile with a camera would have the video function. The only ways you can make some kind of video is by taking a photo and then add your voice over it. I found this feature very pathetic and never bothered to use it more than once.
The camera does have the night mode feature, but guess what? When I turned it on the picture went all yellow and kind of green. It was the weirdest thing I have ever seen on a mobile. This camera was just disappointing me every time I tried to use a feature it has.
A good thing about the camera is that you can use your pictures as the background rather than using the weird pictures it comes with. Another thing is that you can send your pictures and receive some via MMS but if someone with a high resolution camera sends you a picture it might not load because of the pixel difference.


--------------MEMORY & RINGTONE
The mobile only has 8MB of internal memory. This was not good enough for me. I only took less than 30 pictures and the memory was full already. The mobile has just over 30 polyphonic ring tones of its own. However it does have software of "Be DJ" which allows you to compose you own ring tones. The ring tone does take a lot of space. I did create one or three of my own ring tones but I had to delete them frequently as the memory ran out quickly.
Another thing about the ring tone is that they are not that loud. Of course that is due to the mobile's volume. If you put the volume to the loudest you won't be able to hear the mobile ring if you are down stair or if it's in your handbag. I always used to tell that the mobile was ringing via its vibrations other than that I could hardly tell.


--------------BATTERY LIFE
The battery life is not good at all. When I had this mobile I charged my mobile almost everyday because the battery ran out quick. I even remember one day when I was home alone and I decided to call one of my mates. The mobile was fully charged. I sat on the sofa and talked for quite sometime but after about four hours the mobile cut me off. And yes, it was the battery that had gone off, it was quite disappointing and made me look likes a rude person as my mate though I done it on purpose.
Whenever I played my games I always used to make sure that the mobile is charging. The battery life is just awful.


------------THE MODERN FEATURES NOT FOUND ON THE MOBILE:
--Bluetooth (wireless connection to other mobiles and PC from a distance of up to 10m)
-- USB connection (to connect to a PC so that you can charge the mobile or transfer data).
--Infrared (wireless connection to other mobiles and PC from a very short distance of 5cm or nearer).
I think instead of telling you what it does not have I should tell you what it has because it basically does not have anything except for games which are not very enjoyable to play as the screen is well small. It does have WAP, polyphonic ring tones, MMS, SMS; Own screen savers and that's about it.

-------------OVERALL
This mobile is truly a disgrace to the mobile world. First time I dropped it cracked, and knowing that you can't change the mobile cover gives you this weird feeling disappointing mixed with anger feeling. It might have a camera, but don't put your hopes up because the camera is of low resolution and is very blurry. It does have a few interesting games though it's not that easy to download new games. So if you are a gamer type of person you might want to look at another mobile.
It's a good thing that this mobile is not for sale in the marketing anymore. It's basically of no value even my Nokia 1600 is better than the mobile as it is more flexible. After a year of using the mobile, the back could not stay on I had to use sticky tape to make it stay on. The screen was well scratched and the camera had gone from bad to worse possibly because the lenses got scratched as it had nothing to cover it.
Since I got my Sony ericsson K750I last December I have never bothered with the mobile at all... I had to give it away to my friend as it has no value. The state of it was well embarrassing, if I could only change the mobile cover, which of course I can't.

I would not recommend this mobile to anyone at all. The mobile is horrendous and I'm very glad I got rid of mine.

Summary: A small, cute looking mobile that will disapoint to the core!

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Ease of use:
Sound quality:
Variety of features: